


Kuiper Rim

by xerampelinae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 15:32:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16767928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: Then the craft shakes more than it had before, metal screaming worse than the strain of planetary re-entry. Alarms begin to clamor; the section of controls devoted to autopilot goes dark.There is no sound detectable to humans that can travel through space,Shiro thinks, and Keith finally turns from his post, hearing the same cataclysmic noise that Shiro has.“Go,” Keith repeats, and activates the emergency escape pod launch from the main terminal.





	Kuiper Rim

Nothing can survive in space. Shiro’s an astronaut; this is what he’s spent his life learning. Understanding space is an exercise in extremities: of heat, of chill, of vacuum. But there’s always going to be a part of him that can’t stop looking, that can’t stop _hoping._

Nothing can survive in space. Shiro’s still hoping against all else that Keith did.

-

When the Galra send the first Robeast across the region later called the Kuiper Rim, the first manned flight to Kerberos is under way. It had been pushed back to allow for the support of a second pilot, and despite the press of time Shiro had agreed to it. Exploring new frontiers while flying alongside Keith was a dream he hadn’t thought to have until its logistics were questioned.

The admiralty weren’t sure which was worse: their Icarian genius, or his hotshot successor who could only be reliably be tempered by a single person. But they work. Shiro’s flown with and alongside many pilots--learning, teaching, guiding--and none work so seamlessly with him as Keith.

Keith stays in _Kore_ to scan the area while Shiro and the Holts take the first ice core samples. He calls them back to the ship just before the scanners pick up the Galran cruiser--they don’t know it at the time, that knowledge comes later, in reports pieced together from the last transmissions and what Kerberos II manages to recover from the scattered debris--before the Robeast appears.

 _Kore,_ like any Earth shuttle, like any research vessel, hasn't the maneuverability to fight. Keith is at the controls; there is no time to turn the helm over to Shiro.

“Get them to the pod, sir,” Keith says, trying to hold _Kore_ steady, eyes unwavering with concentration.

“Keith--” Shiro says, hanging back as the Holts strap themselves into the escape pod.

“Go,” Keith says, “I'll be right there.”

Shiro obeys wordlessly, turning as he crosses the threshold, ready to catch Keith if the craft begins to give way during their evacuation. Then the craft shakes more than it had before, metal screaming worse than the strain of planetary re-entry. Alarms begin to clamor; the section of controls devoted to autopilot goes dark.

 _There is no sound detectable to humans that can travel through space,_ Shiro thinks, and Keith finally turns from his post, hearing the same cataclysmic noise that Shiro has.

“Go,” Keith repeats, and activates the emergency escape pod launch from the main terminal. 

-

There are no real words for what Shiro feels, watching doors slam shut and seal between himself and Keith. His hands--still contained in the EVA suit--press to the window. _Kore_ falls away from the pod--or maybe the pod falls away from _Kore_ \--and then its engines gun. In Shiro’s mind, Keith is the same pure dedication as the launch. 

_”It’s been an honor, Shiro,”_ Keith said then and now, voice easy and accepting as it travels across the mic and their comm lines to Shiro’s ears in case this, _this,_ is the last of them, to say that it will all have been worth it to fly together even if they only ever made it this far. Then _Kore_ hits the Robeast.

In the wake of the explosion, the Robeast is gone, but so is _Kore,_ and Keith within her.

Nothing can survive in space. Shiro turns numbly to strap himself in at the controls and to automatically check the distress beacon. Then the warship is there, towing them in with a traction beam.

They scream, and then there is nothing. 

-

The Galra want fighters, but Matt’s not one of them. Or maybe he could be a fighter one day, but not like this; for Matt to try as a gladiator would be to sign his life away in futile fear and blood. Sam’s too old to fight as the Galra want; his mind is worth more. They don't know Shiro’s sick yet, and he’s not ready to lay down his life. 

_“What’re you going to do?”_ Keith asks, voice remade in memory from the reedy quality he’d had day that Keith found out about the admiralty’s hesitations over Shiro’s qualifications to the deepening timbre he’d had the last time Shiro heard his voice.

Not _you're dying, you shouldn't go_ but _what is_ your _choice?_ Knowing that Shiro had already made his choice and all that was left was the follow-through.

Shiro takes the weapon.

-

Nothing can survive in space. Shiro’s still waiting to see how long he’ll make it.

-

Fighting as a gladiator is a familiar enough test. The Garrison texted strength, endurance, agility, and any other form of physical fitness they could think of. But it’s Keith that saves his life again--first with the unquenchable depths of his support, and again with all the hours spent together on the sparring mats, melding formal technique with shifting, unpredictable scrapping.

Shiro bleeds in the sand of the gladiator pits but he wins and wins again. The Galra cheer his victories and Shiro wonders instead what Keith would think.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks on the most bitter of days. Nothing can survive in space and Shiro’s slowly drowning in the blood he’s spilled.

-

Shiro falls back to Earth and the Garrison doesn’t want to listen. The sedation takes him under quickly; he hasn’t received any human form of medication since before they’d touched down on Kerberos. 

When he wakes, Shiro feels the warmth first. The gladiator cells were cold, wary places where one might huddle together for warmth but try to resist, however much, against attachment. There’s a hand on his wrist--his human wrist--counting each pulse of his heart, and another rests on his chest as if to feel its rise and fall.

It’s a dream, Shiro thinks. It will hurt more when he wakes, for the hope of it. His next breath is a gasp and Keith’s eyes flicker down, fathomless and open. He looks older, stronger than the musculature he’d maintained for the suit custom-made for him and dressed instead in something far sleeker. Somehow he looks pared down, like his year has been the same endless fight as Shiro’s. His hair hangs long and untrimmed, the way it got when Shiro wasn’t there to remind him to keep within rules and regulations that the Garrison gleefully adhered to. This Keith is a long way off from the Keith that Shiro usually dreams of, in Garrison flight suit or civvies and goggles worn soaring together through the desert.

“Shiro,” Keith says, voice light but deeper than before. Shiro looks and looks and looks. Then he shuts his eyes and reaches up for the hand on his chest.

“I’m here, Shiro,” Keith says. The prosthetic feels less than the other arm, but he feels the press of a hand between his own and his chest. The fingers spread willingly, allow his fingers to settle in between and around them. A new line of heat settles against Shiro’s side; Keith always did run hot.

“Keith--” Shiro chokes out. Whatever this Keith sees has him curling down, settling against Shiro’s chest with their interlaced hands trapped between them. Keith’s free hand slips up to cradle Shiro’s neck.

“I know, Shiro,” Keith says, voice soft. It’s too gentle. “Nothing can survive in space.”

To hear the familiar old thought aloud like this startles a gasp out of Shiro. It’s a knife in his heart--like the familiar knife now strapped to Keith’s waist, the one he’d devoted most of his personal item allotment to.

“Nothing human at least,” Keith adds. “And I’m not only human.”

“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro says desperately. “As long as _you_ are okay, everything will be alright.”

Keith can only clutch Shiro even more closely at this.

“Where--” Shiro says, pausing when his voice falters. He shuts his eyes against a hot new flood of emotion. “Where’ve you been?”

“I'm sorry,” Keith says, hand sliding over Shiro’s scalp in a mirror of a time Shiro had almost forgotten. They’d lain down to nap together in the wide, lonely expanse of Shiro’s bed, only to wake later to Keith in distress. Combing his hand through Keith’s hair until he was calm. It’s strange to feel that comfort in reverse. “I've been trying to make it back to your side, ever since--since Kerberos--and I only just made it here.”

“I want you to be here,” Shiro confesses. “I want it so much. But I'm not that lucky.”

“Maybe,” Keith says, voice curled with a grim edge of humor, “but you are that hardworking.”

“Tell me something only we would know,” Shiro begs.

“The bare ass caught on surveillance in Admiral Sanda’s office five months before the launch was mine,” Keith says. “My identity was concealed with Iverson’s eye patch over most of the camera lens, which is why he stopped wearing it.”

“Admiral Sanda never returned the eye patch,” Shiro says. “She considered it critical evidence. Iverson never knew how it happened. But your pants did suffer a catastrophic failure of integrity.”

Keith shrugs. “I think my roommates may have been trying to haze me by gradually destroying my clothing. In which case my pale ass appeared as a result of cascading prank efforts.”

Shiro laughs, at first low and unsteady, but stronger as Keith joins in. “It’s an absurd explanation but I will accept it, Pilot.”

“To be fair, Command Pilot,” Keith says easily, “you did meet my roommates. You know of what they were capable of.”

“That I do,” Shiro says, and they laugh together. Gradually they sober but remain pressed close.

“Why now?” Shiro muses aloud.

Keith sighs, low and gusty. He looks as if he hasn't slept in the year since Kerberos, since everything fell apart at Kuiper Rim. “Earth may try to dig its head in the sand but. The rest of the universe is preparing to take a final stand.”

“Keith--” Shiro says.

When he shakes his head, Keith’s hair brushes Shiro’s cheek. It’s a surprising softness against the stubble on Shiro’s jaw. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, but tonight--rest, Shiro. You’ve been fighting so long. The fight will still be there tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Shiro says. “If you rest too.”

Keith draws back far enough to look Shiro over once more and nods in answer to an unshaped question. Then he slides into the narrow space left beside Shiro, anchoring him with a palm to his chest before he can try to shift over.

“I’m here,” Keith says. Improbably they slip into sleep with the same ease as the first time they’d shared a bed.

-

Nothing can survive in space. But Keith has. Shiro will never stop being grateful for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it technically the Kuiper Belt? Yes. But we don't call it that here. For a variety of reasons. Kore is another name for Persephone; their mission is Kerberos I.  
> I talked about this idea so much with spookyfoot that I ended up writing it, even though I was determined not to because of how sad Shiro would be. Oops.  
> Dashiell Hammett threw gunmen at his writing problems. I use hijinks and shenanigans instead. Find me as xerampelinaekiss on tumblr if you want ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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